


Left Behind (but not forgotten)

by Wardove



Series: Spider Stories [5]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wardove/pseuds/Wardove
Summary: Mary Jane held grief and rage and hurt in her heart.  Along came a little spider, and he didn't make it better, but he tried.  Along came a whole family of spiders, and the grief will never go, but hugs from family can soften many blows.





	1. Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> This follows the others in the series, and it'd be nicer to read it having read those first since you get more from everyone else's interactions, but it's not necessary. I figured it was time for poor Mary Jane to get adopted, because there's no way in hell this pack of spiders is gonna pass up the chance to adopt more family. 
> 
> A lot of the first chapter is MJ dealing with her grief and anger at Peter's death/very-probable-murder, so be careful friends? Tried to keep it balanced and feeling real without sinking too deeply. Later chapters are a bit softer- gotta get back to my favorite fluff!

I.

Mary Jane Watson-Parker is no fool. It was always a dark, unspoken thing between her and Peter- rising up silently to haunt them whenever he came home beaten and bloody- but never spoken aloud, as though denying it a voice would make it less true. But they both knew- the chances of Peter Parker having a peaceful death of old age in his bed was slim. 

MJ never thought it'd be this quick however. It didn't feel real. He went out one night with a goober and a plan, and then he never came home. Instead, Mary Jane felt her heart shattering into a million pieces as she watched every news channel roll the same story- the one that had haunted her darkest nightmares for years. 

Spider-man was Peter Parker. Spider-man was dead. Peter Parker was dead. 

Her husband wasn't coming home.

She curled into the corner of their sofa, the apartment suddenly too big, too quiet, too empty, and she screamed through the tears.

 

 

II.

She went through the next week in a daze. Funeral, that was something she had to plan. They'd both come up with rough outlines for this eventually, but it was supposed to be something you didn't have to use for decades. May showed up on her doorstep the first day, wrapping her in a crushing hug (not like Peter's crushing hugs, she'd never get those hugs again), and quietly whispering- _"My house is always open hon."_ MJ thanks her, and then retreats to the too-big sofa once more. She cries until she's dizzy and dehydrated, and then she goes back to the papers and continues to finalize things. 

May's stoop is littered with good will, and so is Mary Jane's. She accepts the food offerings only because she tried to cook one time and now that pot and its solid blackened contents are drowning sad and alone in the sink. But she can't stand to see the pictures of her husband's alter-ego, the cards and the letters and the little stuffed dolls. She almost breaks down in the hallway when she sees someone has stitched a little doll in Peter's likeness, not Spider-man's. 

She spends several days holed up there, hiding her broken grief, and then she takes a deep breath and pulls on an invisible mask of her own, and steps out in front of a sea of cameras and red webbed masks. 

 

 

III.

She doesn't know all the details of what Peter was investigating when it happened, but she knew Wilson Fisk was at the heart of it, and whatever he was up to had scared Peter more than any other 'take over the city/world' schemes he'd foiled before. 

A scream catches in her throat, a raw howl of fury, and she might have bitten through the inside of her lip because there is Fisk, the kingpin, the one most likely responsible for Peter's death no matter what the news said, announcing he'll be holding a gala in his name. 

He towers over her, and loudly, publicly invites her in front of a crowd, and and there's bile in her stomach and in her throat but she chokes it down and nods, gasping out some nicety before ducking out and all but fleeing home. 

She gets back and she throws whatever she can get her hands on. She screams into pillows and then she screams into the air and there's tentative knocks on her door but she tells them not now, _please_ not now and they go. And then the fury's melted and she's back to the grief. 

She vows to go to this gala however. She doesn't know what Peter was tracking, she doesn't know what Fisk is scheming, but her best friend, her husband is dead, and she'll tear through the city herself if she has to, to expose his murderer. 

 

 

IV. 

They kept a police scanner on a quiet table in the corner of the living room. Peter didn't usually go out if he wasn't already set for patrol, but sometimes things came up that no-one _but_ Spider-man could handle, so they let it murmur to itself, a background noise of city-life from the mouths of the cops. 

Someone calls in with trespassers in the graveyard where she had to bury Peter, and that's not unusual. People have been breaking in every night, every day, every hour to leave offerings, gifts and flowers and messages of gratitude and grief. 

One of them is just a kid in a rip-off suit. They mention a homeless corpse and that's... well it's sad, but it's New York, and it's the dead of winter. Then it goes on- they're attached to a train somehow- child and body flying above the roads (and apparently through them too). 

This is her first inkling that something of Peter's legacy is carrying on without him. That maybe someone took her words literally, and is trying to follow in his onesie-clad footsteps. 

 

 

V.

The night of the gala, there's ice in her veins, and she takes a small amount of comfort in it because it keeps her from screaming. She chews through breadstick after breadstick in an attempt to block out Fisk's voice, but she realizes she's run out and maybe she's had enough, but then Fisk is shining the spotlight on her and suddenly the ice in her veins isn't so comforting anymore with the heat of attention burning her skin. The moment he takes the stage back she looks for a distraction. She goes looking for more bread. 

All of the waiters are in button-ups and slacks, bowties and blaring red masks. There's a trio with a food cart that's moving a little oddly that's out of that uniform however. One is in a full Spider-suit identical to Peter's, one is small and lithe and black and white and pink with a hood, and one is all in grey with a longcoat and a fedora. And little bowties, because that'll definitely let them blend in.

They're not waitstaff. MJ doesn't know who they are, but they're not supposed to be there, which means they're going against Fisk, which means Mary Jane can get behind them. They seem to be bickering quietly though, shoving the cart back and forth, and their voices are going up and they're going to get noticed if they continue like that out in the open. 

So she walks up to them, and asks for breadsticks, and hopes they get the hint to get off the floor where Fisk can see them. The one in Peter's suit is rambling, stuttering and words falling over words and it's so like Peter that she wants to cry. She wants him to leave, and be safe, this stranger that's too much like her husband, and he's apologizing for _breadsticks_ before one of the others drags him away. 

Mary Jane waits until they're out the doors before she turns back to her table, glancing up to make sure Fisk didn't see any of that. 

She doesn't get any more breadsticks to chew through, but that's okay. She's got something else to look forward to now. Fisk is going down, tonight. 

(The whole building goes down. Fisk's empire goes down. There are people hurt, there are people dead, undoubtedly, but Fisk is _done_ and Mary Jane, for that evening, can only feel a vicious satisfaction.)


	2. and the world goes on

VI.

She sees him on the news first- the little figure that slings webs and ricochets around New York just like Peter used to. He's credited with stopping whatever Fisk was doing, and handing him over to the police. There's no mention or sign of the other people in the spider-suits that she saw at the gala, and she hopes that means they were only there to avenge their hero and have gone back to their own lives, and not followed even closer in his footsteps like this one is doing. 

At first she assumes he's someone that had simply had both the brains and the drive to replicate the webshooters and the special fluid, but he's got the same strength, and he sticks to the walls, and that was all on the spiderbite, which means someone was bitten by yet another radioactive spider. 

She's angry for all of one day, wondering why he wasn't with Peter, why he didn't use his powers to help when it could have saved him. She's angry until she sees the video of the new kid hugging one of the police officers that had arrested Fisk, and it strikes her how dwarfed he is compared to the grown adult. 

She remembers how Peter had been bitten on a highschool field trip, how small he'd been then. She wasn't sure if it was because she was an adult now or if it was just time blurring her memory, but she's almost positive this little follower is even smaller than Peter'd been back then. 

The kid (she can't call him Spider-man, it hurts too much) doesn't patrol as often as Peter did, but she watches his patterns and they're familiar, and she knows he's still in school. His voice is high and he whoops and sings as he swings and he lights up at praise like a puppy. He's a literal child, heart and soul and body.

Jameson doesn't call him a menace. He tears into every reckless move the kid makes, and tears after his parents for not holding him back, and he sounds as angry and verbose as usual, but MJ's known the man for almost a decade- she can hear the fear and regret buried deep in his words. He'd grown to be almost-friends with Peter Parker over the years, and learning the truth had clearly shaken him. He could see the life behind the mask now, see the child, and it scared him like it scared all of New York, deep down. They've already lost one spider, afterall.

 

 

VII.

Several weeks go by before MJ finally meets the little spider face to face. When she's closer, she can see the faint edges of the paint, smell the harsh but faded fumes coming from him, and she can see the professional weave underneath the black. This is no knock-off suit- it's one of Peter's old ones, painted and given new life for a new hero. 

When most people try to flag him down, he waves and quips and poses, but if he does hit the ground it's only for a few seconds of chatter- a couple minutes at most- before he's off again with the boundless energy of youth and freedom. 

Mary Jane can see the moment he recognizes her however- he's swinging up and he looks down and he doesn't toss out another web. He reaches the peak of the arc and drifts back to earth, the stillest she's seen from him yet. He's almost at the bottom of the arc when he moves again, dropping the line and rolling easily to bleed momentum like she's seen Peter do thousands of times before he pops back to his feet before her. She expects him to say something first, he's positively chatty with everyone from what she's seen of him already, but instead he shuffles slightly, and she can tell if he'd had pockets his hands would be buried in them. 

They stood silently before each other, and MJ remembered how the kid had attached himself to the cop that (according to what she'd managed to pick up) had gone down into the collider itself and cheered him on- possibly saved his life. She remembered years and years of Peter flopping on top of her on the sofa and snuggling, and how he always greeted her and May with a tight hug. Always reaching out, always brushing by, always seeking contact. 

So she took a slow, deep breath and raised her arms; a soft invitation. She barely even saw him move before he was plastered against her torso, and the arms were around her middle instead of her shoulders but the feel of powerful enhanced muscles straining to both cling tight and hold gentle was familiar, as was the gentle tug of sticky fingertips pulling at the fabric of her shirt as small arms shook.

MJ lowered her arms and wrapped them around the little shoulders and let herself breathe for a few heartbeats. 

"Promise me you'll be careful?" She whispers into the top of his head, and she can feel him stiffen and then nod. 

"I'm sorry I-"

She tightens her hug to silence him, shaking her own head. 

"No. No don't do that. Peter struggled with it for years, even right up until the end, but you have to learn that it's not always your fault." 

"'Sometimes there's people you just can't save.'" He murmurs back, his tone saying that it's not the first time someone's told him this, and she nods. 

She wants to tell him he's too small, wants to tell him it's not safe, not worth his life, he should go back to his school and his family and _don't follow Peter, please_ but she knows already it's useless. She sees the same spark in him that she saw in Pete- he's going to go out and do his best to save people no matter what, and there's no stopping him. 

They stand there for another full minute before she finally releases her grip and he pulls away slowly. Mary Jane is shaking, and she can feel the tears coming again, but for the first time in too long they're not from the horrible stabbing grief that still lurks in her heart. 

She flicks a two-fingered salute at the little vigilante, and pulls up a small smile. 

"Be safe, and good luck... Spider-man." 

 

VIII.

Finally the others from the gala reappear, and at first she's worried because they might be the start of a trend of copycats that are going to get themselves killed, but they make it clear quickly- they've all got the webshooters, the spider strength, the healing. Something else is going on she knows- there's no way so many radioactive spiders could have escaped containment, not to mention the first kid is small enough that he must have been just a baby when that experiment was shut down. 

She watches as they work together, taking on foes that would leave Peter wounded and healing for days as they work in concerto, guarding each other's backs, and something swells in her chest. She and May had backed him up as well as they could, but out in the suit Peter had been alone. 

The kid wasn't alone though. He had all these other spider-people ready to back him up, and he was developing a rapid rapport with the police that Peter had never quite managed to perfect. They called him Spider-kid, and across the radio MJ heard them teasing the cop that he'd hugged, calling him the Spider-whisperer, heard him grumble good-naturedly, but the protective inflection was there. 

Peter Parker had started Spider-man on his own, and let few people in. 

The new kid was never going to be alone- they wouldn't let him be.


	3. it hurts to see

IX.

It's been six months to the day, and there's someone in front of Peter's grave. The sun has already set, the gates to the cemetery locked, and the only reason she was allowed in was because she made a face at the groundskeeper. But there's a small figure seated on the grass in front of Peter's stone, and she can't make out the words but she can hear the soft voice chattering, telling a story to a dead man's marker. 

He falls silent as she draws close however, and for a little while she stands beside where he sits, his ducked head coming up to her thigh. 

"I was there." He finally breaks the silence, voice barely above a whisper. "There's only so much room under the city- the subway tunnels led right into the collider, yanno? I was just trying to get out of the way, but I fell, and Parker caught me. I wish..." His voice didn't break, but he did stop to breathe. "I know, if I'd gone after him, if I'd stayed when he told me to run, Fisk would have killed both of us. I barely got out of there after he-" He broke off again, and didn't try to finish that one. He didn't need to though. 

Careful of how her small heels sank into the soft spring earth, MJ crouched down and settled her bum on the grass next to the kid, making sure to move slowly in case contact wasn't wanted. When she rested an arm over his shoulders though, he leaned into her side, and they sat together like that until MJ's fingers and toes had gone numb. She didn't try to get up though, and neither did the kid. 

Eventually there was a faint squeak of the front gate, voices as the groundskeeper talked with whoever had come, and then the soft thud of heavy feet across new grass. They step up on the kid's other side, and MJ's honestly surprised when she looks up and sees a face that's grown familiar from the news and the internet. Officer Davis- aka Spider-whisperer, aka Spider-cop, aka Spider-dad. He's in uniform, sort of- he's missing his hat. 

"Mrs. Parker." He greets her with a small nod, when he looks away from the grave and catches her eye. The boy is still leaned against her side and hasn't reacted to the cop's arrival, and MJ briefly wonders if he actually fell asleep at some point. 

"Call me Mary Jane, please." She corrects him with a small smile. "And you're Jefferson Davis- the Spider-dad. Big fan." 

The kid under her arm proves he's actually awake by letting out an amused huff, and Davis uncrosses his arms and rubs at the back of his head. 

"Yeah, yeah that'd be me. Not really sure _how_ my life turned out like this, but here I am I guess." 

The kid snorts this time, lifting his head and looking at the grave, but there's a soft grin on his face. 

"Saturday you spent half an hour freaking out because Noir was juggling knives while pacing in the kitchen." 

Davis squinted into the darkness, a faint scowl crossing his face. 

"Where does that boy keep getting so many knives? Every time I see him he has more. Is there a sensible reason, or is this like the hammer?"

The boy on the ground- Mary Jane is beginning to suspect he's Davis's son, from the way they're talking- shrugs. 

"Nazis try to stab him a lot, so by his logic if it's in his arm that means it's his knife now. Ham agrees with his logic, but Peter made the same face you're making." Davis is indeed making a face- some kind of cross between horrified and constipated. 

_"What is it about spider-powered teens and reckless behavior?"_

"Undeveloped prefrontal cortex?" The kid quips up, shifting until he's sitting straight now. "He _is_ still 19 dad." 

Davis growls something under his breath too softly for MJ to make out, but the kid lets out a surprised bark of laughter and Davis sighs and offers him a hand. "C'mon- dinner's almost ready." 

The boy nods and takes his hand, rolling to his feet smoothly, but then he pauses and turns to look back at Mary Jane. 

There's a few heartbeats where they're all silent, and then- 

"Can I tell you a story?" He asks, sounding oddly worried and hopeful. "Over dinner? It's about a kid that got bitten by a weird spider. Actually, it's about a lot of kids that got bitten by a lot of weird spiders. It's a- heh- weird story, but it's a pretty good one in the end I think, even if the start..." a deep breath, "even if the start really hurt." 

All the other spider-people that appeared after Peter's death, the boy who witnessed it, and the man that watches over them all. MJ looks from the hand the kid's offering her to the headstone, and then back to the hand. She can't help a small smile, which quickly falls in shock as she feels a familiar prickling from his hand when she takes it. His eyes are bright and shining, and he's smiling now as he easily tugs her to her feet with a gentle strength no child his size should have. 

"My name is Miles Morales." 

Mary Jane Watson-Parker feels the tears coming, but she lets them fall even as she's smiling. He really is tiny. 

"Hello Miles."


	4. but you're not forgotten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this wasn't actually gonna be written, but I woke up and could just... picture the scene, so vividly. If I could draw, I might've drawn it instead, but I can't, so y'all get 600 words of me painting a scene. Also, my favorite thing, which is cuddly spider-heaps.

X.

There's a blonde girl on her back on the floor with her feet thrown up on the sofa as she holds a book above her face. Her calves are laying on the stomach of a man that looks like Peter aged a decade and dyed is hair brown. His head is drooping backwards off the arm of the sofa as he snores gently, one arm thrown over the girl's shins and the other across his chest.

One of his legs is down, pressed against the girl's thigh, and the other is pressed against the back of the sofa, his foot angled to rest in the lap of a smaller black-haired girl. She's got a bowl of candy balanced on his ankle, and she's holding a piece up to share with the little spider that's resting on her forearm. 

She, in turn, is curled up in a circle of arms on the lap of a teen who looks like Peter _minus_ a decade, with oddly pale-grey skin and floppy black hair. One of his legs is curled underneath him, while the other swings lazily off the edge of the couch. His eyes are drooping and his head is bouncing slowly with the rhythm of someone fighting off sleep, but he's watching the pair playing cards on the carpet with interest.

One of them is a short figure with a head reminiscent of a pig, but also very clearly not an _actual_ pig, and they're playing a game of poker against... Mary Jane herself. The other MJ's hair is cut shorter, and there's wrinkles and signs of age where MJ herself is still smooth, but the other woman looks up at their entrance and her eyes widen and Mary Jane _knows_. This is her, just like she _knows_ the older man who looks like Peter _is_ Peter, and so is the younger one- funny hair and complexion and all. 

An unfamiliar woman steps out of the kitchen with a pair of oven mitts on, and she smiles as she sees the trio in the entryway. Her gaze turns a little sad as her eyes land on MJ, and she glances at the pile of bodies in the living room. Miles shows no hesitance however- he beelines for the crowded couch, and the blonde girl swings her legs up and away, folding them over her book without batting an eye. Miles takes the opening to twist about and land himself on the small patch of unclaimed cushion, laying his feet across the grey teen's knee and then reclining against the older-Peter's stomach. The blonde drops her legs again, angling them this time so they land on Mile's stomach instead of his face. 

"Hey guys." He greets, once he's settled in, and gets a soft chorus of "Hey/Hi/Hello Miles" back. 

Older-Peter's head bounces up and his chin bounces off his chest as he blinks around the living room blearily. 

"Mi'es 're?" The kid tips his head back and reaches overhead to poke the man in the forehead as he grins.

"Yeah I'm back man. Go back to sleep you janky hobo spider." 

Older-Peter grumbles something that has the others snickering quietly, but his head falls back again and he's right back to snoring like he hadn't woken up at all, though his arms do shift to wrap Miles in a hug similar to the pair on the other side of the sofa, and Miles's face softens as he closes his eyes and snuggles down into the pile.

Mary Jane is watching this all with a strangeness in her heart. It hurts, but not like the fury at Fisk, or the desolation of their- of her empty apartment. It hurts in a warm way, and it feels like powerful gentle hugs and duct tape on broken glass. Davis is still beside her as she takes everything in, and when everyone has settled around Miles's crash entrance again she turns to him to find a warm, welcoming smile and the offer of a hug. 

Jefferson Davis clearly spends a lot of time hugging spider-people, because it's large and warm and safe almost like Peter's hugs were, and when he lets her go he nudges her gently to the gathering and quietly murmurs "Welcome to the family."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno where all the MJ emotions came from, but yesterday (the day before? it's midnight lol) I sat down with a coffee and just... needed to give Mary Jane some closure. Hope you enjoyed the emotions!

**Author's Note:**

> So, I actually meant to post this this morning, but I fell asleep, and then I woke up in time to mooch food off a friend's BBQ, and then I fell asleep by the bonfire, so now it's 11:30PM _but_ I said I'd get this Sunday or early-as-heck Monday, so here y'all go (also that break let me get an idea for the epilogue chapter, so it's 4 chapters instead of the 3 I mentioned!


End file.
